Dallas Stars Blog

Greatest Hits: New Year’s Eve game gives Stars fans reason to be excited for 2014

Because the Pulitzer committee didn’t accept my request to open a category for “Observations,” we’ll try to honor some of the “great work” of the past here. Actually, to help fill the dog days of summer, I’m going to rerun a number of the stories that hopefully gave insight into the journey of last season and helped introduce some of the new characters that joined the organization. With new fans jumping on the bandwagon, it could help them catch up.

This Observations offering came after a nice win in the traditional New Year’s Eve game and used the lyrics of Auld Lang Syne to study how Stars fans should look forward.

If you really look into the history of the traditional song “Auld Lang Syne,” it can have a lot of different meanings.

The Robert Burns poem from 1788 has been sung at graduations and funerals and Boy Scout Jamborees as a way of honoring and celebrating and remembering and forgetting. That seemed appropriate for Stars fans on Tuesday.

The opening two lines are posed as questions and asked of the attendees:

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
and never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
and auld lang syne?

Auld Lang Syne is “old long since’’ in Scot, and means basically days long past. So the author is asking you if you should forget the past and move forward? If you do, he recommends we all do it together with a hearty drink.

And that’s kind of where the Stars are today.

After Dallas was the better team on Tuesday and beat a very good Los Angeles Kings side, 3-2, it’s time to look forward. The Stars are 5-0-2 in their last seven games _ a run of games that really could have crushed this season. After the Stars lost Stephane Robidas (broken leg) and Trevor Daley (high ankle sprain) to long-term injuries and started shuffling the lineup because of various dings and dents, things started to look wobbly.

There was an embarrassing 6-2 loss to Chicago and a frustrating 3-1 defeat at Nashville. Yeah, they could light things up in Winnipeg, but certainly a back-to-back with Colorado was going to prove unraveling. And when Dallas looked awful in a 6-2 defeat in Denver, the guess was the playoff drought would stretch to six years.

The kids were overmatched, Kari Lehtonen was breaking down, Jamie Benn and Tyler Seguin could only find their magic against teams like Winnipeg and Calgary.

But in one night, the Stars found a spark and reduced the shots against by 21. When Colorado ran wild in Denver, it had a 48-33 advantage in shots on goal. When the Stars came back the next night and took a 3-2 win over the Avalanche in Dallas, the Stars had a 28-27 advantage.

Talk about forgotten…talk about never brought to mind.

Also impressive in that game was Ray Whitney’s two goals. The 41-year-old winger had been battling, had been pondering if he was going through an important goodbye, if maybe he was a little “old long since.’’

That game shook him out of it and made him smile again.

Jamie Benn, who had struggled in those two Colorado games, then came up with a goal against Vancouver en route to a 4-1 win at home, and that helped propel the Stars onto a two-game death trap road trip _ at San Jose, at Los Angeles. These two Pacific powers just weren’t losing at home, so the pre-Christmas junket had disaster written all over it.

Instead, the Stars were the better team against San Jose in a 3-2 shootout loss. Dallas had a 46-39 shot advantage against the best puck possession team in hockey. In LA, they hung five on the best defensive team in hockey in a 5-2 victory.

They then came home and collected a nice win against Nashville before losing in overtime to St. Louis. The loss to the Blues brought up all the old anxieties. The Blues played the night before and were tired. The Stars had a 30-22 edge in shots, but simply didn’t have the killer instinct.

It was a wasted opportunity, just like the San Jose game.

But instead of getting down, the Stars learned. Instead of making the same mistake, they adjusted against the Kings. Because the two teams have to skate farther to get to their benches in the second period, Dallas can take advantage of bad changes or of tired players. They did that again on Tuesday.

The shots were 11-6 Dallas in the second frame, and just as important, the Stars handed out no power plays and took two. They scored on the first, and that helped change the game. It was the killer instinct that was lacking against the Blues. Then, the Stars shut down the game in the third period and allowed just five shots against. That, too, is part of the killer instinct.

Erik Cole, 35, stepped up to add two goals. He’s part of the group of old guys that has Stars fans frustrated. Just like Whitney, Cole could be singing one of his last Auld Lang Synes in the NHL, and that sometimes looks out of place in the Stars’ kid-friendly lineup.

We two have run about the slopes,
and picked the daisies fine;
But we’ve wandered many a weary foot,
since auld lang syne.

The intriguing thing is that just like Whitney, Cole was a leading player in this league in the not-so-distant past. He had 35 goals for Montreal in 2011-12, and that’s one of the reasons Joe Nieuwendyk made the trade for him last season.

So if he or Whitney…or Shawn Horcoff…or Sergei Gonchar…has a big game, you start to think they might still have some gas left in the tank. Cole had eight goals in December and now has 10 on the season _ third most on the Stars.

And that makes you ask whether this odd mix can find the right fit. Can the old guys be pulled forward by the young ones? Can the young ones understand the pressure of big games, thanks to the old ones?

It’s a fascinating amalgamation, really.

There are all sorts of Stars fans out there, just like there are all sorts of players on this team. Some are constantly frustrated and ready to knee jerk any time something goes wrong. They’ve been burned too many times. Some are hesitant to believe the good times might mean something. They want to see more proof, more empirical evidence that this emotional investment is going to pay off. There are some who just went away and are waiting for a reason to return.

The 5-0-2 run might be that reason. Because if you look at the bigger picture, the Stars are 15-6-5 in their last 26 games. Now, we’re book-ending that number with winning streaks, so it does skew positive, but the point is that Dallas is capable of a sustained run of playoff-level hockey.

That is a powerful tonic for any fan.

It also tells you just how good you have to be in the West. Playing at a .673 clip over the entire season puts you fifth in the conference right now.

So, yes, there is optimism, but there is realism. And that’s a good thought for today. All of the differing fans with their differing opinions can fit in the same bar and down a Lone Star or a Kokanee or a Guinness. Robert Burns would recommend it.

And there’s a hand my trusty friend!
And give me a hand o’ thine!
And we’ll take a right good-will draught,
for auld lang syne.

Editor Picks

Comments

To post a comment, log into your chosen social network and then add your comment below. Your comments are subject to our Terms of Service and the privacy policy and terms of service of your social network. If you do not want to comment with a social network, please consider writing a letter to the editor.